During my undergraduate years at the University of Idaho, I already knew I wanted to be a teacher, and that I would care deeply about the students under my care. But I felt I needed to look deeper into how I saw the world and my role in it. A key turning point was when I attended a lecture by author and activist Tim Wise. He really challenged people in the room, telling us it wasn’t enough to not be racist—we needed to be actively anti-racist.
So once I had a teaching contract, that was my starting point. And then, talking with students in my classroom and across the school, especially students of color and LGBT students, it just lit this fire in me about the urgency of this work. As soon as I had the opportunity to get involved with education justice work outside my classroom, both in my union and in my district, I leapt at that.
Once the ball got rolling in the racial justice movement with rank and file educators in my district, our local association was very supportive, both by supporting educators who were doing this work and by supporting resolutions and policy changes that added momentum and clout – around Black Lives Matter at School, protections for undocumented students and families, trans-inclusive buildings and bathrooms and more.
For anyone who is doing this work and feels it is going too slowly where they are, I strongly encourage them to reach out and go to the conferences and trainings available through our union. Some of my closest allies and supporters and mentors in the struggle for racial and social justice are people I met through NEA who are in schools in Maryland, Michigan, Utah and Florida.
This speaks to the power of our union to connect people who are passionate and have experiences that will benefit anybody who is starting out in this journey or wants to take it to the next level.
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